Freddie Kissoon column – Temporary paradise

Jun 22, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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I once remarked in one of these columns that once the government keeps hosting international events, we will see development in the city. If there wasn’t the Rio Summit, the Railway Embankment from Sheriff Street to Turkeyen would never have seen street lamps.

The government had to use the Convention Centre and they didn’t want their guests driving into an area of darkness. When Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 came, the East Bank Highway had to be extended since hundreds of officials were booked at Buddy’s International. During the meeting of the Commonwealth Finance Ministers, there was a massive clean-up campaign.

So Carifesta is on its way and the nice-up show is in full swing. An abomination has been done away with. They have removed the old toilet structure in the National Park and are in the process of erecting a new one. This sight was disgusting. The thing was smelly, dirty, infected and unfit for human beings to use. It stood there for over thirty years as a large symbol of embarrassment to this country.

The National Park normally hosts a large number of religious conventions. The thousands of guests had to use those set of toilets. But they never did once they entered. The stands in the Park are also being renovated. Think of how these dilapidated structures would have kept on deteriorating if Carifesta wasn’t coming.

What is on the renovation sheet? Unlike the Rio Summit, the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting and CWC 2007, the restoration campaign for Carifesta will take in far more places in Georgetown. The Rio Summit, Commonwealth meeting and CWC were localized affairs. The first two were concentrated in the Turkeyen area. CWC was confined to Providence.

The Carifesta road show will take in districts that are even outside of Greater Georgetown. Possible landmarks slated for renaissance treatment include the Theatre Guild.

I am contending, and will remain inflexible on this observation, that if it wasn’t for Carifesta, there would have been no donation to the restoration fund of the Guild from the government. I know of no Minister in this government who has shown or is showing an interest in the philosophy of aesthetics.

There is a complex cultural explanation for this omission involving class and ethnicity and their evolutionary shape in this country which will take up several columns. In addition, it is not relevant to this discussion here. Aesthetics is not a social form of life that PPP cadres have shown any interest in over the long years they have been involved in politics.

We may at last see lamps on Carifesta Avenue. It remains a mystery why when the engineering work on this highway was completed, Prime Minister Burnham did not light it up. I want to ask Mr. Hamilton Green for the answer and once I encounter him, I will. 

It couldn’t have been shortage of funds. From 1970 to 1975, Guyana’s economy was doing extremely well. I have a strong feeling that the permanent crater in Hadfield Street at the confluence with Lombard Street will finally be filled. I doubt whether the political elites will take the chance of allowing Carifesta participants to experience that bumpy ride.   

Two things we can bet our lives on that this country will see during Carifesta. There will be no blackouts. If there are, it will be because the system couldn’t take the strain and it collapsed. The government will spend every cent to keep the GPL generators going. Blackout in the midst of Carifesta will do immense damage to the declining image and credibility of the government.

The other goodie that will come our way will be the fumigation of Georgetown. The street cleaners will be ubiquitous in the month of August. There is going to be a clean-up arrangement that will take in a large part of Georgetown and it will be round the clock.

The entire restoration project has a tone that is morally reprehensible. Here is a country in 2008 that has a fallen down physical infrastructure and the government remains unmoved on spending money to give its citizens what all people in the world are entitled to – modern conveniences.

As the years move on, the deterioration process marches on relentlessly. But we have these interregnal interventions so we could deceive the outside world. It is morally and ethically appalling that the only time Government spends money on modern development is when foreign dignitaries have a mission here.

That toilet range will be used by National Park joggers after Carifesta ends and it will eventually need replacing. But it will be left to rot. The dirtiness of Georgetown will remerge after Carifesta concludes and that state of affairs will continue. Guyana will revert to its pristine self after the parade is over.

What kind of description would you put to this awful lack of nationalism on the part of a government? 

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